doggy again

Sent the puppy down to Los Angeles for use on another shoot. Can't share any details yet, but I should be able to publish some links soon!

making a pattern

 Working on an anthro-shaped doll pattern. She turned out really cute!

next teddy bear doll

Working on another customized teddy bear doll, this time of black & white dragon.

Sewing all those little stripes makes this a very slow project to work on; I can't cheat and use the sewing machine for delicate curvy bits. I hope posting progress shots of this online will inspire me to finish it more quickly.

Video Game Reunion

It's so hard keeping secrets, especially about nifty new projects!

But the season has finally finished, so I'm ok'd to post as many pictures as I like, yay!

This was a fun little project I took on over Christmas break, to build a mascot style head in just a few days of the Super Mario's character Birdo. The web-series director gave me free reign to do it however I pleased, so while it was really odd, it was fun! I really like this shot of the head & egg on the nightstand of the Wardrobe department. I love all the behind-the-scenes photographs!

Such neat pictures! Hope it wasn't too hot that day for costumes!

Go to videogamereunion.atom.com and watch the episodes! They're hilarious! But a little naughty. Episode 4 is my favorite, I think the Birdo scene turned out really excellent. I also designed and built Zelda's gold  Armor & belt pieces. Enjoy!

defcon 2010

Finally, pictures have made their way back to me of the kiosk I designed (for DefCon 2010 in Vegas). Here it is in it's new home in Los Angeles, I think it matches the concrete decor pretty nicely.  

I'm so glad that the kiosk is now a fixture in the organization's studio! It looks very quite, though, with none of the LEDs lit up and no image on the monitors. Hopefully it'll be used again soon with the next Ninja Networks event!

on the road

Never complains about wearing his seat-belt!

casting parts

Some people have asked me about how I do eyes & noses, so here's a little sneak peek! First up: Noses!

I start with a paper clay sculpture. Paperclay is cheap, dries (relatively) quickly, around 4-5 hours on a dry day, and is pretty forgiving as far as correcting imperfections with sanding etc. For this nose I wanted something toony, but still 'pebbly' textured. Somewhere between a realistic dog nose and something off Pluto.

Then I mount the paperclay to board & spray with a release agent. I like using an acrylic sheet because I can stick dams of sculpting plasticine to it and get a liquid tight seal. This time I used lego blocks to build a box around the nose, filling the gaps with plasticine. I ended up lining the box with a plastic baggy because I hate cleaning up leaky casts!
One tip for pouring your molding material; pour high! It prevents air bubbles from developing in the molding material. See TapPlastic's website for excellent casting/mold making techniques & products!

Once the molding material cures, peel the acrylic backing off the mold, and out pops the paperclay sculpture!

I trimmed the extra bits off the mold, popped it back into it's support lego box, and then poured my cast material in. For this nose I used a semi-hard polyurethane tinted with black pigment.

It's squishy, soft to the touch, and people seem to like to beep it!